Right Angle began as a column in the now-defunct Sunday magazine in November 1991. The column allowed me the luxury of presenting an alternative to the prevailing left-liberal consensus in India. It has become the implicit signature tune for all my subsequent writings.

Sunday, April 15, 2012

BJP should make BSY Chief Minister again

By Swapan Dasgupta

It was former Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao who
is credited with the view that crisis management often involves doing
absolutely nothing. However, unlike the present occupant of 7 Race Course Road
who falls back on inaction because he is powerless to do anything, Rao’s
passivity was often pre-meditated and born out of careful calculation.

It is entirely possible that the prevarication that
led to the BJP leadership persisting with Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’ in
Uttarakhand till six months before the polls was born out of a similar careful
calculation. It was, however, such a complex calculation that that its logic by
passed the ordinary voters of the state.
The voters of Uttarakhand could never understand the rationale of the BJP
playing political football with a leader of such extraordinary standing as
General B.C. Khanduri.

The possible reasons why the BJP preferred
management by inaction in Uttarakhand for as long as it did are open to
interpretation. Casual observers can only presume that Nishank’s great skills
of survival had little to do with pilgrimage holidays for leaders and their
families, and his ability to keep a few relevant people happy.

The Uttarakhand experience is relevant today because
for some compelling reasons the BJP seems determined to repeat the process in
Karnataka—a state where drift, mismanagement and incompetence appear to have
become the defining features of the state government’s political management.

Arguably, it is not a problem of the party’s own
making. Had it not been for a completely motivated and erroneous judgment by
former state Lokayukta and Team Anna activist Santosh Hegde, the popularly
elected Chief Minister B.S. Yeddyurappa would have been in place. After all,
the BJP had won the Assembly election in 2008 by projecting Yeddyurappa as its
chief ministerial candidate. The Lokayukta verdict of nepotism against
Yeddyurappa forced his resignation in July 2011 and his replacement by the
amiable but political lightweight Sadanand Gowda. The understanding was that
Yeddyurappa would reclaim his chief ministerial position once he had cleared
his name in the courts.

It stands to reason that after Yeddyurappa was
cleared by the High Court of the tendentious charges levelled at him by the
Lokayukta that he would want his job back. For the BJP too, Yeddyurappa’s exoneration
(and the corresponding removal of some of the party’s rotten apples from
Bellary) should have come as a great relief. In the past six months, Sadanand
Gowda had proved unequal to the task of managing the state. His lack of
political standing came in the way of being able to balance and manage
conflicting interests in a state where a spectacular real estate and mining
boom helped fuel corruption on a grand scale.

Just as each extra day of a venal Nishank government
added to the disrepute of the BJP in Uttarakhand, persisting with a weak and
politically inept Sadanand Gowda administration has been damaging the BJP with
every passing day. The Chief Minister’s inability to retain the
Udipi-Chikmagalur Lok Sabha seat (which he had vacated) for the BJP candidate
spoke volumes about his own standing in the state. Every indication pointed to
the need for Yeddyurappa to resume from where he had left off.

With the majority of the BJP MLAs and the MPs from
Karnataka reposing faith in Yeddyurappa, there were no political obstacles to
the restoration. The question, therefore, arises: why has Yeddyurappa not been
reinstated as yet? Why does uncertainty persist over the future of Karnataka
which allows people to fish in troubled waters?

The answer, ironically, lies in the BJP
Parliamentary Board, the supreme decision-making body of the party which
behaved so generously towards Nishank and which is now showing its
unwillingness to have Yeddyurappa at the helm in Bengaluru. The peculiar
feature of the Parliamentary Board is that it does not matter what the majority
thinks. What matters is that a determined minority can block decisions and
force the party into a state of indecisiveness. That is what happened with
Nishank: his removal was doggedly resisted by venerable veterans till the
bitter end. Today, Yeddyurappa’s reinstallation is being opposed by the same
quarter for reasons that are difficult to comprehend.

What is happening is utterly bewildering. The
democratic wishes of an entire state party and the overwhelming majority of its
elected MPs and MLAs are being subverted because there is a veto in Delhi. The
BJP doesn’t move until there is total agreement of its members or until the
President puts his foot down and forces a decision. With Nitin Gadkari
insufficiently strong to press a decision, the collective wishes of the
Karnataka party are being subverted by just two individuals in Delhi.

In the past this high command culture in the
Congress had given birth to severe distortions and destroyed the umbrella
character of the party. In the past two years, the Congress High Command’s
inability to stomach the choice of MLAs in Andhra Pradesh had triggered the
rebellion of Jagan Mohan Reddy. A similar situation in West Bengal had led to
Mamata Banerjee’s departure from the parent party in 1996.

The Congress and BJP
are different parties. However, the impression that there are BJP leaders
determined to force Yeddyurappa into a corner and compel him to form a regional
party is too compelling to disregard. The BJP’s slow demise in Karnataka is a
case study in political self-destruction.

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About Me

The Right is an endangered community in India's English-language media. I happen to be one of the few to have retained a precarious toehold in the mainstream media. I intend this blog as a sounding board of ideas and concerns.
You can read the details of my education, professional experience and political inclinations on Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swapan_Dasgupta).
RIGHT ANGLE is an archive of my published articles. USUAL SUSPECTS is my blog.